Question

Steve’s Lumber Company features a large selection of materials for flooring, decks, moldings, windows, siding and roofing. It is a small, but profitable family business that is looking to expand. The prices of lumber and other building materials are constantly changing. When a customer places an order, typically inquiring about the price on pre-finished wood flooring, sales representatives consult the catalogue, and a manual price sheet and then call the supplier for the most recent price. The supplier in turn uses a manual price sheet, which has been updated each day. Often the supplier must call back Steve’s reps because the company does not have the newest pricing information immediately on hand. Of course, the customer’s order is delayed until a firm price is determined. Steve has hired you to assess the business impact of the situation.
1. What can be done for them to make this process more efficient.
2. Identify 3 metrics that could be put in place to measure the impact of the existing process on operational efficiency.
3. Explain how information systems could support those changes. Discuss what data the systems should capture and what decisions the system could improve.

Answer 1

Answer:

1. The major issue in the process is the lack of communication between different parties. The process being manually driven, might affect the customer satisfaction and lead to lost sales. The changes which need to be made is to make available the price information of different items at once, when the customer comes in to place an order. This can be made possible by asking the suppliers to send the updated sheet every morning before the day's business begins. It will be better if the entire uncatalogued as well as the price sheet is in electronic form, which can be updated immediately, as soon as the information is received from supplier in the morning. One better alternative is to connect the suppliers through an ERP so that their price might reflect at the company's end as soon as it is updated, It will reduce much hassle and mistakes that might creep in due to manual process.

2. a. The number of customers leaving per day / week to competitors due to inefficiency.

b. Total average delay in customer's order.

c. Customer satisfaction rating of the process as this will give the overall picture of customer's opinion about the company.

3. The information system might enable the suppliers to update their information each day which can then be used by the company reps to find out the right price of an item and enable him /her to provide the estimate immediately, leading to greater customer satisfaction, reducing the lost sales and eliminating the chances of a wrong quote being given.